1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to vehicle directional safety lighting systems and devices for illuminating nearby targets with a searchlight or spotlight to assist the helmsman in guiding his vessel safely.
2. Description of Related Art
Technology growth has brought many new capabilities to improve boating safety. The cost of these new capabilities has continued to drop and is now allowing the small boat owner to have high technology products that previously were only available to military and commercial ships or Yachts of wealthy owners. A prime example has been marine radar, first used by the military then by large commercial ships; next by larger fishing boats and yachts and now by small private boat owners. As this marine radar market grew, new features were added following the same trend. The pertinent example of this is Automatic Target Tracking first developed for the military and now available for the small boat operator. ARPA (Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) is now available as MARPA (Mini Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) at prices below $1000.
Another pertinent technology has been the incorporation of data networks on boats. The NMEA 0183 standard serial data network was introduced to allow a variety of marine sensors to communicate with each other via a common data link. NMEA2000 (another serial data link) and Ethernet style LANS (Local Area Networks) are now in use on small vessels.
Vessels equipped with a marine radar and MARPA can provide data on these networks to be used by other instruments such as the device which will be described in this patent application. When a vessel is maneuvering at night and in tight quarters, utilizing radar as the primary sensor, it is often highly desirable to illuminate nearby targets with a searchlight or spot light to assist the helmsman in guiding his vessel safely. The present invention provides an Automatic Target Illumination System to achieve this function.
Although watercraft are typically provided with a rotatable light beam mechanism for spotting such targets in the dark to aid in navigation and to avoid collision therewith, an operator manually directing the rotational position of such light beams is very limited in their effectiveness of illuminating such targets simply because the operator does not have an initial indication of the general direction in which to point the light beam.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,660,846 to Anderson teaches a radar collision warning system for ships providing an audio and/or visual alarm upon the identification of an object within a predetermined range of a vessel. A fixed radar principally for use on sailboats providing a continuous forward looking beam and dual range display with limited azimuth information is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,195 to Greene. The indicator lights in the '195 patent represent a different target range and are excited in accordance with video signals received.
Kaplan, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,290,043 and 6,380,871, discloses an above-the-water system and method for finding targets in a marine environment. An optical transmitter transmits infrared and UV light beams toward different zones of coverage on the water and an optical receiver detects return target reflections.
A night vision system utilizing an infrared camera and installable onto a marine vessel is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,729,016 to Klapper, et al. The system provides visibility in conditions of darkness, smoke, haze and bad weather. Hypes, et al. teach a laser light navigational safety system with safety lighting for use in low visibility conditions in U.S. Pat. No. 6,126,299.